Daily Mass Readings for June 07, 2024: Gospel — Jo 19, 31-37

¹ “When Israel was a young man, I loved him like a son, and I summoned my son out of Egypt. ³ Yet it was I who led Ephraim; I took them by the arm, but they did not acknowledge that I had healed them. 4 :¹ Listen to the Lord’s message, you Israelites! For the Lord has a covenant lawsuit against the people of Israel. For there is neither faithfulness nor loyalty in the land, nor do they acknowledge God. ² There is only cursing, lying, murder, stealing, and adultery. They resort to violence and bloodshed. ³ Therefore the land will mourn, and all its inhabitants will perish. The wild animals, the birds of the sky, and even the fish in the sea will perish. ⁴ Do not let anyone accuse or contend against anyone else, for my case is against you priests! ⁵ You stumble day and night, and the false prophets stumble with you; you have destroyed your own people. ⁶ You have destroyed my people by failing to acknowledge me! Because you refuse to acknowledge me, I will reject you as my priests. Because you reject the law of your God, I will reject your descendants. ⁷ The more the priests increased in numbers, the more they rebelled against me. They have turned their glorious calling into a shameful disgrace! ⁸ They feed on the sin offerings of my people; their appetites long for their iniquity! ⁹ I will deal with the people and priests together: I will punish them both for their ways, and I will repay them for their deeds. 1 ⁰ They will eat, but not be satisfied; they will engage in prostitution, but not increase in numbers because they have abandoned the Lord by pursuing other gods. 1 ¹ Old and new wine take away the understanding of my people. 1 ² They consult their wooden idols, and their diviner’s staff answers with an oracle. The wind of prostitution blows them astray; they commit spiritual adultery against their God. 1 ³ They sacrifice on the mountaintops and burn offerings on the hills; they sacrifice under oak, poplar, and terebinth, because their shade is so pleasant. As a result, your daughters have become cult prostitutes, and your daughters-in-law commit adultery! 1 ⁴ I will not punish your daughters when they commit prostitution, nor your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery. For the men consort with harlots; they sacrifice with temple prostitutes. It is true: “A people that lacks understanding will come to ruin!” 1 ⁵ Although you, O Israel, commit adultery, do not let Judah become guilty! Do not journey to Gilgal. Do not go up to Beth Aven. Do not swear, “As surely as the Lord lives!” 1 ⁶ Israel has rebelled like a stubborn heifer! Soon the Lord will put them out to pasture like a lamb in a broad field. 1 ⁷ Ephraim has attached himself to idols; Do not go near him! 1 ⁸ They consume their alcohol, then engage in cult prostitution; they dearly love their shameful behavior. 1 ⁹ A whirlwind has wrapped them in its wings; they will be brought to shame because of their idolatrous worship. 8 :¹ Sound the alarm! An eagle looms over the temple of the Lord! For they have broken their covenant with me and have rebelled against my law. ² Israel cries out to me, “My God, we acknowledge you!” ³ But Israel has rejected what is morally good; so an enemy will pursue him. ⁴ They enthroned kings without my consent. They appointed princes without my approval. They made idols out of their silver and gold, but they will be destroyed! ⁵ O Samaria, he has rejected your calf idol. My anger burns against them! They will not survive much longer without being punished, even though they are Israelites! ⁶ That idol was made by a workman—it is not God! The calf idol of Samaria will be broken to bits. ⁷ They sow the wind, and so they will reap the whirlwind! The stalk does not have any standing grain; it will not produce any flour. Even if it were to yield grain, foreigners would swallow it all up. ⁸ Israel will be swallowed up among the nations; they will be like a worthless piece of pottery. ⁹ They have gone up to Assyria, like a wild donkey that wanders off. Ephraim has hired prostitutes as lovers. 1 ⁰ Even though they have hired lovers among the nations, I will soon gather them together for judgment. Then they will begin to waste away under the oppression of a mighty king. 1 ¹ Although Ephraim has built many altars for sin offerings, these have become altars for sinning. 1 ² I spelled out my law for him in great detail, but they regard it as something totally unknown to them. 1 ³ They offer up sacrificial gifts to me and eat the meat, but the Lord does not accept their sacrifices. Soon he will remember their wrongdoing; he will punish their sins, and they will return to Egypt. 1 ⁴ Israel has forgotten his Maker and built royal palaces, and Judah has built many fortified cities. But I will send fire on their cities; it will consume their royal citadels. 9 :¹ O Israel, do not rejoice jubilantly like the nations, for you are unfaithful to your God. You love to receive a prostitute’s wages on all the floors where you thresh your grain. ² Threshing floors and wine vats will not feed the people, and new wine only deceives them. ³ They will not remain in the Lord’s land. Ephraim will return to Egypt; they will eat ritually unclean food in Assyria. ⁴ They will not pour out drink offerings of wine to the Lord; they will not please him with their sacrifices. Their sacrifices will be like bread eaten while in mourning; all those who eat them will make themselves ritually unclean. For their bread will be only to satisfy their appetite; it will not come into the temple of the Lord. ⁵ So what will you do on the festival day, on the festival days of the Lord? ⁶ Look! Even if they flee from the destruction, Egypt will take hold of them, and Memphis will bury them. The weeds will inherit the silver they treasure— thornbushes will occupy their homes. ⁷ The time of judgment is about to arrive! The time of retribution is imminent! Israel will be humbled! The prophet is considered a fool— the inspired man is viewed as a madman— because of the multitude of your sins and your intense animosity. ⁸ The prophet is a watchman over Ephraim on behalf of God, yet traps are laid for him along all his paths; animosity rages against him in the land of his God. ⁹ They have sunk deep into corruption as in the days of Gibeah. He will remember their wrongdoing. He will repay them for their sins. 1 ⁰ When I found Israel, it was like finding grapes in the wilderness. I viewed your ancestors like an early fig on a fig tree in its first season. Then they came to Baal Peor, and they dedicated themselves to shame— they became as detestable as what they loved. 1 ¹ Ephraim will be like a bird; what they value will fly away. They will not bear children— they will not enjoy pregnancy— they will not even conceive! 1 ² Even if they raise their children, I will take away every last one of them. Woe to them! For I will turn away from them. 1 ³ Ephraim, as I have seen, has given their children for prey; Ephraim will bear his sons for slaughter. 1 ⁴ Give them, O Lord— what will you give them? Give them wombs that miscarry, and breasts that cannot nurse! 1 ⁵ Because of all their evil in Gilgal, I hate them there. On account of their evil deeds, I will drive them out of my land. I will no longer love them; all their rulers are rebels. 1 ⁶ Ephraim will be struck down— their root will be dried up; they will not yield any fruit. Even if they do bear children, I will kill their precious offspring. 1 ⁷ My God will reject them, for they have not obeyed him; so they will be fugitives among the nations.

⁸ To me—less than the least of all the saints—this grace was given, to proclaim to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ ⁹ and to enlighten everyone about God’s secret plan—the mystery that has been hidden for ages in God who has created all things. 1 ⁰ The purpose of this enlightenment is that through the church the multifaceted wisdom of God should now be disclosed to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly realms. 1 ¹ This was according to the eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, 1 ² in whom we have boldness and confident access to God by way of Christ’s faithfulness. 1 :¹ From Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints [in Ephesus], the faithful in Christ Jesus. ² Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! ³ Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ. ⁴ For he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him in love. ⁵ He did this by predestining us to adoption as his legal heirs through Jesus Christ, according to the pleasure of his will— ⁶ to the praise of the glory of his grace that he has freely bestowed on us in his dearly loved Son. ⁷ In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our offenses, according to the riches of his grace ⁸ that he lavished on us in all wisdom and insight. ⁹ He did this when he revealed to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, 1 ⁰ toward the administration of the fullness of the times, to head up all things in Christ—the things in heaven and the things on earth. 1 ¹ In Christ we too have been claimed as God’s own possession, since we were predestined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will 1 ² so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, would be to the praise of his glory. 1 ³ And when you heard the word of truth (the gospel of your salvation)—when you believed in Christ—you were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit, 1 ⁴ who is the down payment of our inheritance, until the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of his glory. 1 ⁵ For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, 1 ⁶ I do not cease to give thanks for you when I remember you in my prayers. 1 ⁷ I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, will give you spiritual wisdom and revelation in your growing knowledge of him, 1 8 —since the eyes of your heart have been enlightened—so that you can know what is the hope of his calling, what is the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 1 ⁹ and what is the incomparable greatness of his power toward us who believe, as displayed in the exercise of his immense strength. 2 ⁰ This power he exercised in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms 2 ¹ far above every rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 2 ² And God put all things under Christ’s feet, and gave him to the church as head over all things. 2 ³ Now the church is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.